Adidas Invests in Facebook for Soccer

Onefootball, a German mobile application with 25 million users across 200 countries, announced it has closed on Series B and Series C funding rounds; the company previously acknowledged raising $20 million in investment capital. Described as “Facebook for football without the social element”, the app offers news, live scores and stats for over 140 leagues in 16 languages. Focused on building a premier user experience that results in higher conversions for advertisers, founder Lucas von Cranach said that despite the captive audience (90% opt-in to receive push notifications), the company “won’t build a betting business, won’t build a merchandise business, and we won’t build a ticketing business”.

Howie Long-Short: Onefootball remains privately held, but Adidas (ADDYY) participated in the most recent round; finding value in the captive mobile fan base mentioned. Information pertaining to the amount of capital invested and valuation were not disclosed. There are several publicly-traded soccer teams. Manchester United is traded on the NYSE under the symbol MANU. You can buy A.S. Roma (OTC:ASRAF), Juventus (OTC: JVTSF) and Borussia Dortmund (OTC: BORUF) over-the- counter. Lazio is traded on the Borsa Italiana under the symbol BIT: SSL.

Fan Marino: As recently noted, more teams at the 2018 World Cup will wear uniforms made by Adidas (11) than Nike (10); but that won’t be the case when it comes to cleats. It’s expected that for the 2nd World Cup in a row, more than half of all players will be wearing NKE footwear; 52% wore the brand at the ’14 WC. For comparison purposes, just 36% of players wore Adidas footwear in 2014.